Thursday, July 10, 2008

Spoiled and a bit soiled

To honour the tradition of giving paper on the first wedding anniversary, Matt spoiled me with a three part gift, as he explained it. First, for the mind, I got 2 huge cat books and an issue of Bust magazine. There's also talk of a 2-year subscription to Bust for my birthday. I'm loving the cat books, especially this one which has tons of interesting cat facts and which I think I had recently stumbled upon online but hadn't mentioned to Matt. Some synchronicity perhaps? The other one will be great for photo references and ideas for new art, which was why Matt got it. What a sweetie!

The second part was for the body. I got a package deal for 90 minutes of soothing massage! An hour for my seemingly always aching feet and 30 minutes for the entire body. I'm looking forward to that in the near future!

And last but not least, for the soul, a Curry's gift card. The card itself is not paper, but plastic, but it's close enough. That will definitely come in handy for supplies, especially a new sketchbook.

While I would have loved to spend money on Matt, my bank account is on the lean side these days, so I honoured our anniversary with a handmade gift. I made a little book about our love story up until now, partly inspired by the one by this clever gal, which I could not resist getting.

I think the gift went over well though. My sweetie shed a few tears while reading it, and said it was the best present he's ever gotten. And I didn't even have time to really finish it... I still have to go back and ink all the drawings and lettering too. But here's a little sneak peek of one of the interior spreads.

I was quite impressed with myself that I was able to do all the drawings in one day, sans eraser too. If only I could illustrate other people's books that quickly too.

The rest of yesterday was spent cleaning up a bit around our place, as the night before we had some flooding from the big sudden storm that hit Toronto and surrounding areas. I didn't snap any photos of the soggy mess, as I was too busy cursing and mopping and trying not to cry. At least we didn't get the brunt of the damage since our unit is the third one in from the side of the building. The other two units had water all over their lower level and one of them had hardwood flooring! Yikes! This is the state of our lower level at the moment. Someone came by yesterday morning to remove our baseboards so they could dry out the walls and prevent any mold from growing, but we weren't home when they came back with the fans last night...

... we were out enjoying a dinner down the street, which was only semi-good, I'd say. The salad portion was certainly generous and I had my first Cosmo, a la Sex and the City. For some reason, I think the one they made was a lot stronger than usual, as it was much pinker than red and it only took a sip or two to feel a buzz.

Whatever the case, I had good company and that made the whole day worthwhile.